Folks been had

schofy

My Folks, Who are not computor savey recently upgraded their big numb desk top computor to a laptop. Purchased from Tesco, Told it would do everything they needed.
They followed all the relevant instructions to get set up and have been flying away since, Apart from yesterday, Where my mum rang flapping that the laptop had said windows office had expired and that they no longer had word or could use outlook express to send emails.
Apparently there is only a trial version installed. Something not advised when they paid for it.
Do they have to buy a version of microsoft office or can they downlaod something, It's brand new mind so they are mega paranoid or if I send them my disk version of office that will solve their problem.
I'm miles away so trying to deal this down phone and the shop they purchased it from just say buy one.

GlasgowTech

schofy wrote: »

My Folks, Who are not computor savey recently upgraded their big numb desk top computor to a laptop. Purchased from Tesco, Told it would do everything they needed.
They followed all the relevant instructions to get set up and have been flying away since, Apart from yesterday, Where my mum rang flapping that the laptop had said windows office had expired and that they no longer had word or could use outlook express to send emails.
Apparently there is only a trial version installed. Something not advised when they paid for it.
Do they have to buy a version of Microsoft Office or can they download something, It's brand new mind so they are mega paranoid or if I send them my disk version of office that will solve their problem.
I'm miles away so trying to deal this down phone and the shop they purchased it from just say buy one.

Most machines bought from retailers these days come with a 30day trial of MS office suite. Unless they were advised in-store that it would come with a full version they will now have to buy it. Personally i would recommend they forget MS Office and instead install Open office. It will do most things that Microsoft office can do except its FREE! All MS Office documents etc can be opened and edited within open office so they wouldn't be missing out!

A simple Google search for open office will find it and it can be downloaded form there.

Dale.

RancidM

very common for new machines to come with a trial of Office.
If they own a previous copy of Office they can un-install the trial and install their old version.

or they can purchase a copy of Office from MS.
if they want to continue using Outlook they will need Office Home and Business at around £200.

Alternatively they can use one of the freeware versions such as open office or the like.

macman

They won't have Outlook Express on a new laptop. Just Outlook, as part of MS Office. MS Office has never been included as part of the Windows OS, although it has sometimes been bundled by retailers.
They can only install from your Office disk if you have a multi-user licence.
Otherwise I would suggest using Libre Office, it'll do everything that MS Office will do for the type of tasks they'll need it for.
Nothing to do with Tesco unless they said it came with a fully working version of MS Office, so perhaps you need to change your header.

Enterprise_1701C

I use Open Office and it is perfectly good. If they are desperate for a copy of MS Office then students can get it cheaper, do they know someone with a student in the family?

aerostar

When microsoft office was first started it does say it is a trial !!!! but then nobody really reads what appears on screens !

If you send them your disc of office and it has to be activated - at some time it will generate a Office is not genuine as you have already activated it previously - this is done by the Windows genuine inbuilt program.

Use Libre office and uninstall the MS trial version.

For emails - use Thunderbird

johnmc

Uninstall Office as it is unlikely casual users will need all the bells and whistles.

Load either OpenOffice or LibreOffice and set the default templates to Microsoft.

There are plenty of free email clients and MS have "Windows Live Mail" for free.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows7/products/features/email

mttylad

And setup teamviewer so you have remote access.

Stooby2

Also, tell them to check their paperwork, and disk cases etc. It maybe they have a full version but haven't activated it by entering a licence key. There may be one in all the stuff that came with it. You can install the ful version and use it, but it must be activated within 30 days.